Thursday, January 10, 2013

Via an email from Austin Frakt with the subject "should we worry a lot about Medicare growth?," and the answer in the text "It doesn't seem like
it. Massively demographically driven. A bit more revenue and it's fixed for a
long time." [Remember that projected health care cost growth is the main source of worry about future debt problems, and hence the driving force behind the push from deficit hawks for spending cuts and tax increases, well spending cuts anyway, the so-called deficit hawks are not so fond of tax increases which betrays their true motives.]:

I'm not sure I buy my own statement that we
only need a bit more revenue. The demographics are costly. The real message is
that there is nothing much we can do about it. Cutting beneficiaries or
benefits amounts to a cost shift, and is probably net cost increasing,
system-wide. So, we must spend the demographically-driven amount. We then just
need a bit more to deal with health care cost inflation. One would like to
reduce that to zero, but a modest increase won't kill us, and certainly not
quickly.

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Projected Medicare Spending

Via an email from Austin Frakt with the subject "should we worry a lot about Medicare growth?," and the answer in the text "It doesn't seem like
it. Massively demographically driven. A bit more revenue and it's fixed for a
long time." [Remember that projected health care cost growth is the main source of worry about future debt problems, and hence the driving force behind the push from deficit hawks for spending cuts and tax increases, well spending cuts anyway, the so-called deficit hawks are not so fond of tax increases which betrays their true motives.]:

I'm not sure I buy my own statement that we
only need a bit more revenue. The demographics are costly. The real message is
that there is nothing much we can do about it. Cutting beneficiaries or
benefits amounts to a cost shift, and is probably net cost increasing,
system-wide. So, we must spend the demographically-driven amount. We then just
need a bit more to deal with health care cost inflation. One would like to
reduce that to zero, but a modest increase won't kill us, and certainly not
quickly.